


Things That Make It Warm. (Or People.)

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (is making out considered smut? i dont think so...), Aged up characters, Bisexual Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Eleven Has Nightmares, Eleven | Jane Hopper-centric, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Character, Lesbian Eleven | Jane Hopper, Slight making out, Song: Things That Make It Warm by Cavetown, i want a relationship like these characters so bad, mentions of minor character death, which is why i'm writing so many lesbian fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23618779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: El had another nightmare. Max finds herself restless & awake prior to it.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Will Byers & Eleven | Jane & Dustin Henderson & Maxine Mayfield & Lucas Sinclair & Mike Wheeler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Things That Make It Warm. (Or People.)

**Author's Note:**

> This story could be considered a sequel to my other book, "SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK." I did not intend it to be a part two, so it could be read as a stand-alone fic. However, the prequel is much longer and more in-depth on the characters if you're interested. Thanks for reading.

It was the same place again, just as it was yesterday, yet it felt as though it had aged a thousand years. Was it the same? It truly didn’t feel like it. The cold water felt the same as it lightly tapped the bottoms of El’s feet whilst she walked through the mist. Her eyes felt hazy, glossed over and glazed with condensation. Was it tears, or was it the brightness of the light in the dark, the seemingly endless cavern?

The light was right there. She could feel it, she could almost reach out and touch it- but hesitated. She knew there were others, the ones she could save. What was once only a few turned into dozens. The water wasn’t just water, it didn’t have a reflection. It seemed to be the path that the Others took, the children and adults alike. El couldn’t really tell if the path was moving away or towards the beacon of light. She looked down at her feet, subconsciously stepping back as she did so. The water was red, maroon almost, like someone had spilled their guts out. It was more slimy than what she had felt before. She almost thought that she may be slowly creating some fucked up story as she goes, no map planned out beforehand. Not any story, but one where she was the centric character.

The lost ones, the lonely people. Who were they? Are they truly just the heaps of blood and guts like they looked, or did they still have their souls? These little creatures, these poor creatures, moving against their own will. Is this how her stepbrother felt during the possession? Maybe these things could still see, like their eyes were still fully functional, but their bodies acted like a magnet. Dragging them slowly towards this huge creature, the one that destroyed the lives of many. They would plead for their bodies to cease movement in what was at first a small voice. Then screaming. Ear-piercing ones, like an annoying ring that lasts for hours. Yet only they could hear it. 

El didn’t want them to be lonely. The ones who lost their lives due to being possessed, just like Billy. She didn’t want them to have to sit in that pile of the Mind Flayer’s remains, each and every one of them still just a small part of the body. Maybe she could join them, help them. Maybe she could keep them company, even if it’s only for a small amount of time. Maybe that’s where that beacon of light would lead her, as it was the only place in sight. Not to Starcourt Mall, where the remains previously laid, but just to them. To the lost people, the ones who were surrounded by dozens of others just like them, unable to communicate, knowing they were on the bridge of life and death. 

Towards the light she sprinted. To meet her new friends, dozens of the lonely ones. 

But her eyes shot open again, even though she didn’t recall closing them. The cold feeling spread away from her and was replaced with warmth. The musty, almost sharp air that she breathed in was replaced with the smell of cologne and cigarettes, one that was almost too familiar. Her feet weren’t soaked with blood, though the sensation stayed for a few seconds, but instead had air just tickling the tips of her toes. She reflexively tucked them back under the duvet. El breathed out a sigh of relief, looking around the room. Will was the first person she saw, laying calmly next to Lucas on the ground in their individual sleeping bags. Dustin had taken up the couch, Mike was on the floor right next to the blow-up mattress that the girls had taken up, and Max was nowhere to be seen.

El sat up, looking around the room. The door at the top of the stairs was open, even though she was sure the boys had it closed. Looking down at Mike, who was asleep just beside her spot on the mattress, she slid the duvet off of her and climbed off the bed. There were creaks in the hardwood, she knew that, but the amount of experience she had sneaking out of Mike’s basement during the party’s sleepovers helped her memorize which steps to avoid. She could manage to get out of the basement without waking the boys up, which must have been what Max had done. 

The kitchen light was still on upstairs. Just one of them, even though there were many. It made the room dim, but just light enough to make out small features of the area. El slowly walked over to the kitchen counter and sat on one of the stools, just trying to think. She was conscious now, that was obvious. The dream was now slightly forgotten, the only thing she could remember being that beacon of light. It didn’t mean anything, she knew that, but for some reason the setting keeps coming back to her. Does it have some sort of emotional connection to her? Or is it just the remains of the Upside Down’s effect on her, the childhood trauma of being a test subject glued into her brain? 

El found herself staring out the window, which was slightly fogged up. She could see what looked like the silhouette of the trees outside the front lawn, but it was so far away that it just looked like a large shadow. She slowly slid out of the chair, trying not to let her movements make any noises, and walked over to the front door. Max sometimes got up to sit outside whenever she couldn’t sleep, it was something she said in part of one of the many pillow talk conversations they have had in the past. This one was a few days after Prom, when they first started dating & getting more comfortable with each other.

“Sometimes i miss being outside when I’m trying to sleep. I just like the cold air, I guess.”

Max misses being outside. El misses when Max is pressed up against her body, her arms snaked around her waist, one leg thrown over El’s thigh. Intertwined together, like two pieces of a puzzle that didn’t seem to fit until they tried it. That’s when she truly feels warm, when Max is with her. Maybe she wouldn’t have had that dream if her girlfriend stayed curled up beside her. Though it wasn’t her fault, and El would never say that to her. She knows she doesn’t need Max to survive, but that wouldn’t make survival any less easier without her. 

She’s just one of those things that make El feel warm, and that’s really all she needs. Even when she stepped outside, her legs and feet bare, the air nipping at her skin, she felt warmer than she would in the Upside Down. Maybe that was because she was in the overworld again, or maybe it was because she could see Max sitting on the curb, a cigarette hanging from her lips, her head tilted up into the sky. She looked peaceful, comfortable, and El couldn’t help but admire her from a distance. She was still in her pajamas, wearing Dustin’s fluffy socks that she stole from him, which were slightly dirty from the grass. Max’s shorts were just slightly shorter than what she is normally comfortable with wearing in public, and her bra was off underneath her baggy white t-shirt. 

El stepped off the front porch and slowly walked towards her girlfriend, sitting beside her and pulling her knees closer to her chest to stay warm. Max looked over to her, glanced down at her lips, then looked back up and smiled. Just with that, El’s heart was fluttering again. She brought her hand up to Max’s face and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Why are you awake?” She said quietly, even though it felt like her voice could travel a million miles in the open air. 

“Couldn’t sleep. Why are you awake?” Max replied, putting her cigarette back in between her lips and inhaling it. El watched the smoke travel out into the wind for a second before responding with, “I had another nightmare,” These instances weren’t uncommon, but she rarely ever wanted to talk about her dreams. They were almost like emotional keepsakes. So, Max wouldn’t push it. She knew that El was a very independent person, which makes her seem secretive at times. El never wanted to hide things from her friends, but these sort of things were difficult to bring up. Will was the same, he disliked talking about the Mind Flayer to other people. He felt crazy, even though he wasn’t.

“I missed you,” El told her, scooting closer to Max and letting her head fall against her shoulder. She looked up to where Max was looking, at the bright moon that seemed smaller than it had before. The light still shone over Hawkins while the moon was slowly moving down to other parts of the earth. It was only a matter of time before the sun started rising. How long has Max been up? Did she wake up super early, probably around 4:30 am, or did she just come out here? 

Max turned to El and pressed a soft hand underneath her chin, bringing her face closer. “Nobody's watching,” She said, rubbing her thumb against El’s jawline. “It’s okay. They’re all asleep,” Which did beg the question: was this okay? If it was mandatory to hide it from the world around them, would that make it a crime? Would it be a crime to look at her girlfriend the way she’d look at a shooting star in the sky? 

“Is this okay?” El asked, earning a quick nod in return. It was without hesitation, and she couldn’t help but crack a small smile. She looked around, even though she knew nobody was watching her, Max’s hand still resting under her chin. El took a breath, subconsciously noticing how cold the air outside was, but not paying any attention to it. She then looked back to Max and surged forwards, pressing her lips to her’s. They were dry and chapped, and her morning breath obviously wasn’t the greatest, but it was better than having to wait all day until they find themselves alone again. El slowly moved her hands up to the hem of Max’s shirt and fiddled with the bottom of the silk fabric, listening to the small whines that came from her girlfriend’s throat.

Both were still conscious of the world around them, even before they pulled apart. El’s hands slid up her shirt, but then quickly back down. “Christ, Maxxie,” She said, breathing quickly. Their hearts were going a million miles an hour, but it wasn’t a bad feeling- a good one, a feeling that was mutual between the both of them. The same feeling that they got just by looking at each other.

In love under the early morning sky, two of the lonely ones. The two who are lonely together.

**Author's Note:**

> To clear a few things up that you may have not picked up on:
> 
> -El has recurring dreams of the same place, which is why she thought the place looked familiar.
> 
> -The "Other Ones" are the people who were victim of the Mind Flayer's possession in Season 3. This includes Billy, Heather, and the other hundreds of people who died in the event.
> 
> -I did not come up with the "Lonely Ones" concept on my own. Though i managed to use it in a different way than the original, the concept was first brought up in one of Scott Cawthon's Five Nights At Freddy's novels.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the story!


End file.
